(snip)
Mr. Moussaoui wanted technical classroom training to familiarize himself with airliners. He asked questions about protocols for communicating with flight towers. He wanted to learn fast. He paid by pulling a wad of cash — roughly $6,800 — out of a small satchel. Soon, employees began whispering that he could be a hijacker.
"The cash, the Middle Eastern accent, the fact that he had very little pilot training and wanted a significant amount of training in ground school and on the simulator — all of these things together pointed to the fact that this was a significant concern," Mr. Rosengren said.
(snip)
He was vague about which of the "big airliners" interested him the most, ticking off a list that ranged from a Boeing 747 to an Airbus A-300 and saying that his choice for training would "depend on the cost and which one is easiest to learn." But he was specific in the skills he hoped to master.
"The level I would like to achieve is to be able to takeoff and land, to handle communication with ATC," he wrote, referring to air traffic control, "to be able to successfully navigate from A to B (JFK to Heathrow for example)."
(snip)
The price was $8,300, and Mr. Moussaoui used a Visa credit card to make a $1,000 payment on July 11, followed by a $500 payment the next day. On July 31, Pan Am officials sent him, via e-mail, his schedule: classroom instruction on Aug. 13 and Aug. 14, then 12 hours of training over four days on a 747-400 flight simulator.
(snip)
The next morning, on Aug. 14, the office held its monthly meeting of instructors and administrators, and Mr. Moussaoui's name quickly came up. Instructors wondered why he was so interested in learning the protocol for communicating with the flight tower when "it was very obvious that he did not know how to fly an airplane, especially something as big as that."
(snip) "There was discussion about how much fuel was on board a 747-400 and how much damage that could cause if it hit anything," he added.
One thing I noticed here that didn't sink in originally was that he had NO pilots license. I guess I just assumed that he could fly a little cessna if he was studying at a commercial liner school.
The point that I'm trying to make here is that even the greatest optimist in the world couldn't expect him to learn enough in 2 days in the classroom and 12 hours on the simulator to be able to fly the plane, much less hit any kind of target. Did they expect him to be able to force a real pilot to fly into their target?
Were they getting worried that the authorities were getting too close, so they sent him in as a decoy?